Daryl Dolynny

Thank you, Mr. Nadli. To the motion. We will go to Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The motion is in order. To the motion. Ms. Bisaro.

Question has been called. The motion is carried.

---Carried

Mr. Nadli.

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. To the motion.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, colleagues. Today I want to talk about one of the mismanagement projects that we’ve had in our history of the Northwest Territories. In fact, this project has even been earmarked by the Auditor General of Canada as having definite issues with accountability and transparency, and even more recently, the taxpayers are still dealing with cost overruns with this project. I’m talking about the Deh Cho Bridge.

This project is still not done. I’m led to believe that we are still dealing with structural issues and even as of this summer that we’ve just recently sole...

Bill 24 is now ready for third reading. I would like to thank Minister Lafferty for coming here today. I would like to thank Mr. Chutskoff and Ms. Saturnino for joining us today. If I could get the Sergeant-at-Arms to please escort the witnesses out of the Chamber. Thank you.

Ms. Bisaro, what’s the wish of committee?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We heard that there are internal funds being used for that, but I didn’t quite hear a timeline, so I’ll encourage the Minister to get back to the Member and the House.

We know that competition with the local job market requires a strong policy with such an NWT Nominee Program. Can the Minister reassure the public, with pending reform, will GNWT policy, including mining industry socio-economic agreements, still recognize Aboriginal people at a higher priority than foreign workers?

To the bill as a whole.

It’s good to hear that we have some communication here with our federal Minister, but I would like to get a little bit more information in terms of where we are at with our NWT Nominee Program. This is where we administer from our end. I am led to believe that we have only two out of four employees actually working in this department, so I’m a bit concerned whether or not we have the capacity to work with it.

For example, what has been our quota for this program? How many unprocessed applications do we have? How long have these applications been in stasis and how many have actually been...

Any further questions, Mr. Hawkins? Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. General comments. Committee, are you prepared to go clause by clause?